


You gotta put your faith in a loud guitar

by loveinadoorway



Category: White Collar
Genre: M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2011-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:33:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveinadoorway/pseuds/loveinadoorway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title: You gotta put your faith in a loud guitar<br/>Pairing/Characters: Neal/OMC, Peter<br/>Genre: slash<br/>Rating: R<br/>Word count: 1699<br/>Warnings: sex hinted at, drug abuse mentioned<br/>Spoilers: none<br/>Disclaimers: No harm intended, no profit made, yadda yadda. Title and quote from KISS, God gave Rock’n Roll to you<br/>Summary: Written for comment_fic over at LJ: White Collar; Neal/OMC, Peter, Any; Coming out<br/>Author’s Note:  Kaya Red Thunder has never been written down before. He usually lives in the good night stories I tell myself. He has a back story and all that jazz… I feel slightly uneasy about sharing him, LOL.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You gotta put your faith in a loud guitar

_You can take a stand, or you can compromise  
You can work real hard or just fantasize _

He let the long black braid slide through his fingers. He just loved the feel of that. Weird, really. None of the women he’d ever been with had had hair like this man.  
Braided, it hung down to his butt and Kaya being tall to boot, that was one helluva long braid to toy with.

Neal sighed with pleasure as he let the silky braid slide through his fingers one more time.  
Kaya was asleep, stretched out on his stomach. Neal couldn’t get enough of any part of the man, truth be told. It scared him a little, because he suspected he might be falling hard for the guy.

The long bronze slope of Kaya’s back was tattooed with a large Japanese dragon and several smaller tats, as was his chest and arms. The man was on the skinny side, maybe a little too skinny still, after .. Skin, bone and muscle, Neal would jokingly say and press second helpings on the other man, even though he knew it would get him an exasperated look and some muttered words in Cheyenne that would probably make his ears explode if Kaya would ever supply the translation.

If asked, Neal couldn’t even say what had drawn him that night two months ago. He had been bored out of his wits and June had told him of a party in the neighborhood.  He had been bored stiff in a different location, then, for about an hour until he spotted a tall Native American in worn-out jeans walking towards him with long, purposeful strides.

So not his type.  
Neal disliked long hair on men, hated people who insisted on wearing jeans everywhere and positively LOATHED tattoos, which he verbally denounced as being a sign of stupidity and lack of education. The guy was smoking, too. Neal should’ve turned on his heel and should’ve gotten the hell out of Dodge at that.

But he made the mistake of looking into the man’s eyes. Light brown, almost amber, it was like looking into the eyes of a cougar or lynx or whatever wild cat one might think about… he completely lost his focus and the train of thought he might have been following – or not. The look in those incredible eyes made it clear that the guy wasn’t going to be interested in polite conversation.  
So not his type. But oh SO his type.

One thing had led to another and the another had led to arguably the best sex Neal had ever had. Period. And that had led to.. them meeting again and again. First, it had all been about the sex, but then they had started to go on.. dates, for lack of a better word.

Neal had dragged Kaya to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Kaya had browbeat Neal into going to some of the shoddiest clubs he’d ever been to, to hear poetry slams or blues battles or some stuff so outlandish it didn’t even have a name. They’d be fighting violently about art, music, wine, food, everything. They had nothing in common, except.. that it absolutely didn’t matter.

Neal loved to argue with Kaya, Kaya enjoyed baiting Neal.  
Neal was verbal, Kaya was quiet. Neal would try to con Kaya into doing something, Kaya would see right through it. Depending on his mood or if the subject was to his own advantage, he’d then go along with it regardless or make sure Neal paid for the attempt.

Opposites attract was such a boring cliché, really. And it didn’t fit. Not really. They had fairly quickly discovered just what it was that they had in common and after that, none of the other stuff mattered anymore at all. Actually, they had discovered that the very night they met.

Well, see, you just couldn’t hide that goddamned anklet during sex. Not even an accomplished con man like Neal could. Kaya had been curious, arching one of his eyebrows questioningly at Neal. He had listened to the entire thing without interruption. There was no shock in his eyes, no judgment. Just interest.

When Neal had finished, Kaya had shown him his arms, track marks marring the skin. He had told him about 20 years of addiction and the horrors of withdrawal. Had told him about growing up dirt poor in the nations and doing everything to get out of there. EVERYTHING.

Then Kaya had shrugged and said: “Why should I judge you? Wouldn’t take bets on which of us has the longer list of crimes and misdemeanors and will hence be on the fast elevator to Hell at the end of our days.”

Kaya was a rock star.  
Guitarist and lead singer of a rock band. Neal had been shocked at first. Hard Rock or even Heavy Metal, depending who you asked. Music Neal had hitherto quite successfully pretended didn’t EXIST. And yet there he was, backstage, watching his man perform with no small sense of pride the other night.

Had felt the guitar like icy fingers caressing his spine from the inside of his body, or so he told Kaya after the show. At which the exasperating man had laughed uproariously and told him to reign in his overboarding prose a bit. Sometimes, a guitar was just a guitar.

Neal sighed again and lightly ran his thumb up and down Kaya’s spine. He felt at home with Kaya. Safe, grounded and happy. Yes, that was scary, but then again maybe it was time for Neal Caffrey to grow up and stop running away from his feelings.

Of late, he had wondered if he had been with Kate solely because she had always been slightly elusive. A challenge to keep? Someone who was permanently on the lookout for something better? It had felt like that, anyway. Like he had to always be wary, like he had to always find something extraordinary for her to entice her to stick around.

Maybe Kate had been his biggest con – and like most of the things he had conned from someone, she hadn’t been his for the keeping. He had clung to the idea of Kate while he was in prison. The idea, rather than the reality. He had taken her as the beacon for a future he deep inside had known he would never have with her.

So, time to abandon all pretexts and settle down with someone who understood Neal better than anyone he had ever met. On a level… well, let’s say nobody had ever been privy to the depth of what made Neal Neal before. Which again was incredibly scary, come to think of it.

His thumb continued its restless path up and down Kaya’s spine.

“Mphh tickles,” Kaya breathed into the pillow.

“Want me to stop?”

“Nah. S’nice.”

After a while, his lover turned slowly and stretched like a cat.

“You look like you’ve been awake for quite a while.”

“Yeah. Been thinking,” Neal said, expression guarded as he let his fingers draw the outline of Kaya’s dragon on the sheets from memory.

“Is that a good or a bad thing?” Kaya asked with a half-smile.

“Depends on the outcome. I think I should.. tell people.. about you, maybe.”

Neal was very pointedly not looking at Kaya. His lover wrapped one hand around Neal’s wrist and stilled his restlessly doodling fingers.

“And what will you tell these.. people?”

“That.. I dunno. That you’re.. we’re.. That..” Neal took a deep breath. This was so much more difficult than anticipated, especially since they hadn’t ever talked about what that thing between them really was when it was at home. So there was a very real chance that Neal was baring his soul and Kaya would just shrug his shoulders and .. no, there was no chance for that. Neal knew the man. Neal would choose to trust the man.

“That I’m with you and we’re having a relationship and I’ve always liked men, too, since forever and then I’m going to ask if they can extend my reach by the fucking 200 yards that now make it impossible for me to be at your place with you,” Neal said very quickly, not taking a single breath in between the words for fear he wouldn’t be able to continue if interrupted.

“Sounds good to me,” Kaya said, pulling Neal close and kissing him thoroughly.

Neal walked into the office, fighting a sense of impending doom. He had no idea how Peter would react to the news. He seemed pretty understanding about Diana, but Neal had experienced enough bad let downs to not expect him being in a gay relationship to count as quite the same thing for Peter.

Peter looked surprised when Neal asked for a moment of his time after lunch, but grabbed another coffee and led the way to his office readily enough. Once Peter had settled behind his desk and taken a few sips of his coffee, Neal launched into his speech. He had rehearsed it the entire morning and he made it all the way through without faltering.

The silence in the office was deafening. Neal looked at his fingers as if they would be giving him the answer to the big question about the life, the universe and everything any second now. Peter took another sip of his coffee, then slowly and deliberately put his mug down.

“And you’re avoiding my eyes exactly why now, Neal? I mean, you don’t honestly think I’m going to be weird about this, do you?”

Peter’s eyebrows looked like they were about to take up permanent residence in his hairline as he continued: “Which part of my behavior towards, say, Diana, has led you to think I would mind the least bit if you sleep with men or women, as long as you don’t do it in any way that could be construed a felony?”

“I have never slept with anyone where it could be construed… oh, wait a minute, I actually think I HAVE…”

Everyone in the office was staring at Peter’s office, as the sound of two men laughing like crazy filtered down into the bull pen.

That night, Neal looked out over the Hudson, sipping champagne as Kaya kissed his neck.


End file.
